Page 49 of The Best-Kept Secrets
“Do the Huntresses frighten you?”
“Absolutely,” Colm said without hesitation.
They could hear Dr. Wilstead’s voice from inside the room. “A word, Miss O’Doyle.”
Duke grew instantly still and listened. Colm did the same.
“How long has your sister had this rash?”
A rash? That was not a good sign at all. Depending on what type of rash, Nia might be horribly ill indeed.
“I will not tolerate her neglect.” Grandmother’s well-known shrill tones carried over to them. “It is an embarrassment to the entire family.”
“What is stuck in her craw now?” Colm muttered under his breath as they turned to watch their grandmother approach.
“I suspect she will tell us without prompting.”
Grandmother stormed toward them, her eyes on the doorway. Duke moved to stand between her and her apparent destination. Nia needed to rest, not be subjected to a Seymour squabble.
“Penelope is in there instead of seeing to the rest of her guests, and I mean to remind her of her duties.”
Duke reached back and pulled the door closed, preventing their grandmother’s voice or her presence from intruding further upon the sickroom.
“The younger Miss O’Doyle is not feeling well,” Colm said. “Mother is acting as a support to the older Miss O’Doyle, who is understandably concerned about her sister. That is the perfect thing for a hostess to do.”
Grandmother ruffled up on the instant.
Duke would do best to head off whatever was coming before it burst forth. “The time you spent teaching her how to look after guests in her home has clearly proven beneficial now. All the guests will be singing the praises of the Seymour family.”
Colm very clearly bit back a laugh. He obviously knew Duke was soothing Grandmother’s ire with a bit of exaggeration.
“Would you be so good as to make certain the breakfast items have been refreshed?” Duke said. “Not all the guests have risen yet, and I do not have to tell you how important it is that they not find stale offerings when they do.”
Grandmother gave a firm nod. “I suspect that hasn’t been seen to. I will do so at once.” She made good on her declaration and stormed off only slightly less snappish than she had been when she’d arrived in the corridor.
“That was a near-run thing,” Colm said. “She almost bullyragged her way inside.”
“Our parents and grandmother all being at Fairfield is likely to lead to more disasters like the one we only just narrowly avoided.”
Colm released a tense breath. “Unfortunately, I’ve been having the same thought. The Seymours can’t manage to be entirely at peace, can we?”
“I’ve never known the family to accept a ceasefire.” Duke rubbed at his forehead, tension and frustration expanding ever more inside him.
“Makes you feel sorry for anyone who has to spend any amount of time with us.” Colm set himself on the other side of the closed door, likely intending to keep watch over that end of the corridor.
“Our friends will leave here grateful that they aren’t required to endure a lifetime among the Seymours.”
A lifetime among the Seymours.Colm hadn’t, Duke felt certain, meant the observation to be pointed, yet it struck Duke with piercing emphasis.
Duke was making plans to reduce the amount of “this” that he would have to endure during his lifetime, knowing it wouldn’t ever be fully eliminated. And any lady he brought into his life would have to endure it as well. The arguing and petulance. The demands for appeasement. The barbed comments and thinly veiled criticisms. The embarrassment when other people witnessed the combative connections in the Seymour family.
Courting a lady would bring her into the periphery of that purgatory. Actually marrying her would permanently tie her to it.
He supposed he had always known that to an extent, but he’d not dwelled on it overly much. There’d been no reason. But there was now.
The growing infatuation he had for Eve couldn’t be allowed to grow. Even setting aside the precariousness of his housing situation, something no lady should be pulled into, the life he had to offer was one inextricably connected to conflict and unhappiness, with a family he suspected would treat her as poorly as they treated each other. It was, he knew all too well, a dismal prospect.
Eve deserved better.
